ABSTRACT
From 2020, English language classes will be a regular subject in elementary schools for 5th and 6th graders along with the new course of study published in 2017 by the Ministry of Education, Sports, Science, Culture, and Technology (MEXT) in Japan. However, very few elementary teachers have studied TEFL methodologies in their teacher-training courses, and thus feel lacking confidence in teaching English, with pronunciation being a notable problem. Osaka Kyoiku University (OKU), a national university for teacher-training, anticipated this by providing two teaching English courses for future elementary school teachers in accordance with the teacher-training core-curricula (MEXT, 2017). This is task-oriented research, which shows an effective way to promote undergraduate students clear pronunciation using phonics instruction. This paper describes the effect of practical phonics instruction showing the test results from university students.
KEYWORDS
Phonics, Teacher-training, Teaching English to Young Learners, EFL